Augliera Chronicle Of A Betrayal

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-88-354-8226-0
Verlag: Tektime
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 114 Seiten

Chronicle of a Betrayal is a tale set in two different historical periods and places: in Rome in 1944, after the American landing at Anzio, and in Brooklyn in the early 1980s.
The protagonist is a sixty-year-old Italian-American living in Brooklyn. His orderly life is upended by a young robber's intrusion into his apartment. The event triggers a whirlwind of memories taking him back to the war years when, as a youth, he became a partisan in a Rome on the verge of freedom.
His early choices convince him to help the robber. Will he succeed?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Augliera, Leo

Weitere Mitwirkende

Stanway, Phil

Leseproben

1

We fondly believe that bygones are bygones. The past has become so hazy that we hope to have forgotten our mistakes. Tenaciously we refuse to keep our minds clear so as not to have second thoughts. We prefer to believe that our early years are no longer ours, that the past is over and done with. But it takes little to bring back, one after the other, the ghosts deemed to have vanished or even denied by our conscience.

Giuseppe was a decidedly insignificant man, belonging to that species of humanity unable to look ahead without glimpsing the final day of doom, imagined to be even more miserable and squalid than all those leading up to it. He now lived holed up within the walls of his home, convinced that it was the only way to shield himself from everything outside.

He waited, motionless and hopeful, for the day just beginning to be the same in every way as the days gone by.

That morning in the fall of 1984 there was nothing to foreshadow the upheaval of his habits: the walls, the newspaper and even the solitude were the same as always. The leaden atmosphere of Brooklyn, which heralded an especially harsh winter, beat insistently on his window. But Giuseppe seemed not to notice, in focusing on building the model of the Santa Maria, the caravel used by Christopher Columbus to discover the New World. That was the only event of the day to remind him of being Italian.

He had disembarked from the ship at Ellis Island, fleeing the rubble of Europe, as one of many desperate people, just after the Second World War: finally he had landed in a place still able to welcome people in need of help and protection. Fleeing the horrors and destruction which had razed all Europe and torn his country apart in a civil war, he sought, in the promised land, the light needed to crush the darkness he bore within. He looked proudly at the Santa Maria, which he was building with dedication and painstaking patience, while his eyes moistened. Was this great welcoming country not born thanks to an Italian? Yes, an Italian like him.

The radio, as always, continued to broadcast old and new songs; every hour a speaker with a warm and serious voice reeled off news, more or less good, creating an atmosphere weird and rather suspenseful.

“It’s 9:30 a.m.... Daily news... The meeting between the unions and General Motors has ended. Such intervention, requested by both parties, may guarantee the renewal of the contract of workers in the car industry... Foreign policy. The American Secretary of State, on his tour of consultations with leaders of Mediterranean countries, met the Israeli Prime Minister today; the talks, likely to focus on the situation in the Middle East, are still ongoing... News... A news agency flash informs us that a few minutes ago, a lone man tried to rob a bank in Brooklyn. On the timely intervention of a plainclothes policeman, who happened to be present, the robber did not hesitate to open fire, wounding the policeman and a customer, who was likewise in the office at the time. The lone man managed to escape on foot but is being sought by the police, who have set roadblocks up in the area... More news. Six twins have seen the light of day in a hospital in…”

The ringing of the telephone drowned the litany. Giuseppe rose slowly from his seat, turned the radio off and picked the receiver up.

“Hello Giuseppe, how are you feeling today?”

Even before replying, Giuseppe guessed who was at the other end of the line: it was George, a lifelong friend, the former office colleague with whom he had created a strange, almost morbid complicity, consolidated over more than thirty years spent face to face behind desks in a cramped office. He had not seen him since his day of retirement, but their friendship was ongoing thanks to that phone call, punctually recurring every morning. By now, both had become convinced that their exchange of news, often banal and meaningless, was the one way to start the day well. After all these years, Giuseppe had become his colleague's privileged confidant, even if the talk often ended as gossip. The daily appointment was not in the least vexing; on the contrary, the phone call was one more reason to appreciate his lifestyle, to remind himself every day that he had spent his life well; so well that his friends, his true friends, had not neglected to give him the consideration he deserved.

He answered the question: "Better. The soreness in my throat has almost gone."

“Thank goodness, at least you are well. I, on the other hand, am in a terrible state... You can't imagine what happened to me; the very thought of it makes me cringe!”

Giuseppe was not impressed by his friend's tone; he knew him well and was aware of his tendency to make mountains out of molehills. “Really! What is the great misfortune?” He sounded bemused.

George seemed not to notice his friend's irony and went on in the same vein. "What happened? If you are sitting, hold on tight to your chair, because I'm going to tell you something incredible, beyond all logic... This morning I left home early. You know, I had not been able to sleep a wink all night, and the moment the sky brightened, I felt so uneasy that I jumped out of bed and went for a walk... The sense of freedom you feel on strolling through the streets at the crack of dawn is unbelievable. I was practically alone, happy with the stillness soothing my agitation. Even the biting cold made me feel more alive with every step. While enjoying the pervasive peace, I suddenly happened to meet... Just guess who it was." George always recounted his daily trivialities, adding silly riddles here and there.

“How could I possibly guess!” A riddle may have been the one thing able to vex Giuseppe.

“It's easier than you think.”

“I'm telling you, I don't know.”

“Very well, then I'll tell you... Do you remember Marzio, the colleague from the design office? Of course you do. He was as thin as a rake and had a big nose. He looked like a crow of ill omen, and we teased him for having a shrill spinsterish voice... Listen! He hasn't changed a bit.… Well, at that time of morning, when not even a dog is on the alert, I failed to see him rushing towards me, as if late for a key appointment! Just imagine my surprise, when he stopped only inches ahead of me and looked me in the eyes, as if about to grab me... I admit I was taken aback... We stood there, too amazed to move, then slowly he lifted his right arm and pointed his forefinger at me: ‘Aren't you George Pollock?’ he asked. Taken aback, I wanted to counter with equal confidence: ‘And you are Marzio, Andrew Marzio!’... Do you know how it ended? It ended with us hugging, after the fit of embarrassment... There were the usual pleasantries, then he asked me point-blank... Guess what?”

“Please, I have no idea!” Giuseppe felt that his confidant was going rather too far that morning and that it might be better to end the call soon.

“So I'll tell you what that idiot wanted… In a voice increasingly shrill, he said to me: ‘Excuse me for asking, I feel rather embarrassed to do so, but I really have to… Can I have the ten dollars back which I lent you five years ago?’ Do you understand?! He wanted ten dollars, which he claimed to have lent me at least five years ago… I was flabbergasted. How could I possibly remember? Good grief! After years of not seeing a colleague, the first thing he has to say is: ‘Hand me at least ten dollars!’ Well, trying to sound impartial, I said to him: ‘What are you talking about? I've never asked anyone for anything. And besides, with all the friends I have, why should I ask you for a loan.’ And I left him in the lurch… What do you think? Was this the way to react?”

“Maybe you could have…”

“I'll tell you what I think. He does this with every ex-colleague he meets, and among them, he always finds someone silly enough to indulge him. But it doesn't work with me; I can stand up to him!... Well, that being said and done, I feel better. Please, say hello to your wife. Today seems like the perfect day to take things easy.”

“Goodbye!” Giuseppe hung up. He sometimes found it hard to understand his friend’s aplomb, as there were a cruelty lurking within and just waiting to pounce.

This time too, he had sensed, at the other end of the line, the sadistic pleasure seeping from the pedantic account of the humiliations inflicted on Marzio; he sensed it so clearly that he was tempted to voice his outrage and perhaps even to urge him not to turn to him again with his petty cruelties. He wanted to do so but finally refrained. He shrugged it off and slipped back into his natural apathy; he told himself that, after all, it was none of his business, and went back to his desk. He looked at the Santa Maria, which took up nearly the whole shelf, smiled with satisfaction, and sat down to go on building the sailing ship which, once finished, would surely bear him away on an endless voyage.

His wife came into the room, as Giuseppe was putting yet another piece of the model into place, as shown by the guide. He looked up and gazed intently at the woman: he thought with regret and a hint of nostalgia of her lost beauty. She was wearing a coat too big and, while walking, was fumbling with her gnarled hands for something in a battered handbag. Intrigued by the scene unfolding as if in his absence, he was unable to take his eyes off the person whom he had lived with, under one roof, for over thirty years. Almost playfully, he wanted to revisit the first moments, the advances which had convinced him to choose her...